


the way we look like animals

by MurphyAT



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: And He Knows It, Derek Hale is a Creepwolf, Derek is a Failwolf, Epistolary, I Don't Even Know, Love Letters, Love Poems, M/M, POV First Person, Poetry, Stiles may or may not have a thing for it, basically love poems to each other that they would never EVER IN THEIR LIFE send, they just have a lot of feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-17
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-09 01:05:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1139620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MurphyAT/pseuds/MurphyAT
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek looks at Stiles sideways, like if he can just turn him a certain way, he'll stop making so much sense.</p><p>Stiles does NOT have a Bad Boy Fetish, okay. It's just that thing Derek does, with his face, and the leather, and his stupid little smirk and the dead relative thing. He's the most ridiculous person Stiles has ever met. It's really hard to look away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sour and Delicious

**Author's Note:**

> This first one is from Stiles's POV. There's kind of a lot of digressing, because Stiles isn't allergic to using words as a legitimate form of communication (*cough cough*). 
> 
> Chapter title is from "Saying Your Names" by Richard Siken.

You have a sour-apple mouth, shark-sharp teeth  
I have problems focusing  
on anything else.

You’re the blackened edges of an unfinished love letter,  
curled in defense of the hand that could tear you in two  
if you weren’t already in pieces.

I don’t care if your words have all been burnt up  
(and anyway, your eyebrows work like mouths and I can read your shoulders like a book)  
I don’t care if I never change you the way the ghost of her matchbox still does  
(I know the line between love and hate has always been thicker than blood for you  
But you’re not the only one with a dark anchor)  


I don’t care if you dress like a greaser and lurk like a delinquent  
You are all black danger and there is absolutely nothing about you  
that does not fascinate me

(this is not a bad boy fetish. probably. mostly this is about the way  
my heart catches on the glint of your teeth  
the way your voice cracks, when you hang on your nobility like a cross  
and just a little bit because of how you climb through my window—  
casual and proprietary, the set of your mouth daring me to call you on it—  
You know I could never resist a dare.)

your mouth always takes a sour turn—I want to kiss you anyway  
your teeth are half as sharp as your tongue—I have edges of my own to test  
And a surface I’d like to test them on.


	2. The Old Dull Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek never really considered werewolves to be tactile creatures, anymore than humans were. It took him a while to figure out that maybe it wasn't about what he was. Maybe it was about the way he had staring contests with Stiles's hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is from Derek. It's short because Derek (unlike SOMEONE he knows) doesn't ramble. Title of this chapter is from Richard Siken's "Little Beast (5)".   
> (Next chapter's POV is reader's choice. Pick your poison, pigeon. Lemme at 'em.)

Sometimes—  
—sometimes, I just want to touch.  
I get this itch when I see my own hands wrapped  
around your window latch, like it’s an incomplete picture  
like the metal under my fingers is too hard, lacks the give  
and take of skin, the push and pull of air  
It’s times like these I understand finding that in someone,  
in anyone, just to know they exist to feel you back  
just to know I’m scratching their itch  
Yes, I think, taking a long slow breath of your air,  
I think these hands could use a lover.


	3. Reduced to Heat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles really likes fire. Derek is hot like burning.  
> This is a problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from "Into the Elephant Grass" by Brian Turner. Chapter is from Stiles's POV.

I've always had this _thing_ about fire  
(I'm not a pyro-freak, okay, and Derek's tale is so cautionary he might as well be a warning label, but  
If it were I think it'd say **WARNING: KATE ARGENT SUCKS** , because even Smokey the Bear couldn't argue it was all fire's fault  
Fire is dangerous. But so are freaking _insane people_.)

I've had a thing for fire since my dad taught me how to build one—  
it was so tiny, at first, just a wisp of warning smoke, but I pushed it and the more I  
pushed it and poked and prodded and blew on it, the healthier and bigger it got. Dad used to joke  
that it was the one thing I could never annoy to death.  
It was like discovering my worst quality was actually a superpower.

(The sicker my mom got, the more fires I made at night. It was  
the closest I ever got to praying—harassing flame to life and aching,  
and wishing people worked in a way I could fix.)

My thing for Lydia came just after that; she seemed like fire itself  
(I poked and prodded, and her eyes would just light up. _her hair was very red._  
I wondered what it would feel like, to get close enough for her to burn me.)

It's no wonder I saw Derek and couldn't look away. He's the flash  
of a smirk, a red-eyed glare, _teeth, ashes, ashes, teeth_ —  
He's dangerous and out for blood, and he could burn me up  
(I hope he does, oh god, do I)  
and yeah, I'd say he's "hot like burning" if it wasn't so tasteless,

But Derek has a voice like a mellow summer night, and sometimes his teeth  
look less like wolf and more like bunny (I would tell him  
I think they're adorable, but he'd make a face like lemons)  
and so I remember, how fire is warm, too, and soothing, bright  
How people still use fire to ward off animals (like, _say ___, mountain lions) which, irony, right?  
I'm pretty sure Derek's sense of humor grew up in Death Valley, CA and he  
knows _exactly_ what it's like to let someone set you on fire.

No one sees how right we'd be,  
The Man Burning and the Boy Who Stands Too Close, too close to the flame—  
I snap just like a broken branch under the heat of his stare, and sparks fly.


	4. Survivor's Guilt is a euphemism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek doesn't win--he survives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not entirely sure this one is done yet. Lemme know what's up.

I don't win, much.  
I'm not sure if it's because of all the wrongs I could never right  
or if I'm really just naturally terrible at all of this—as Stiles would say,  
_I fail at life_ — I fail at all the things that would make life worth it  
Like family. Friends. Love. I'm not that amazing at fighting,either,  
and I never even had to learn. No, I'm not great at living.  
My area of expertise is more _survival_. Taking the hits. Moving on.

Survival is selfish, and primal, and useless. It drags you through hell  
and out the other side screaming bloody murder, and it declines  
when you ask it to let you go. 

They call it survivor's guilt; I just call it Guilt. That's what it's called  
when it's your fault and you didn't have the decency  
to die afterwards. There's not a lot of redemption in this story,  
but I don't have time to feel too bad about that  
because there are people I want to survive for, now  
and that's a hell of a lot like living. 

I don't know what to do, when the town goes crazy  
and produces increasingly odder creatures-of-the-night for us to fight, so  
I sit on Stiles's bed and tell him it's important.  
I take him in, shoulders drawn up tight, eyes flickering and mouth set,  
and I think, _once, just once, maybe I can win this._


End file.
